New Found Glory

An interview with New Found Glory in May 2001, when the band played the Foundary in Birmingham.

Rn: How does it feel being on MTV?
Chad: Weird, for me I grew up watching MTV and for your wildest dream to come true, it’s kinda weird, I dunno how to take it. It’s like when you’re little you’re always like ‘I wanna be on MTV’ and now we are and it’s just kinda weird.

Rn: Did you get moved up from Drive-thru to MCA already?
Steve: Yeah. When we signed to Drive-thru they had a deal with MCA that they would distribute the CD’s for us and there was a clause in the contract or something that said if we do well on Drive-thru that MCA has the rights to pick you up.

Rn: So do you think it signals Blink 182 style world domination?
Steve: Well the thing is we’ve grown from having 10 people working for us to having 150 people working for us so it’s a big deal, and all the people that work at MCA are like are friends and they’re really cool to hang out with, they all worked at independent labels before they worked at MCA.

Rn: Are you going to stick with the same style on any future albums?
Chad: Yeah, we’re gonna stay as New Found Glory the thing about us is on all our CD’s, Nothing Gold Can Say and the last one, we don’t just have like one set style, we have slow songs, we have fast songs, you know we have different kinds of songs, so y’know nothing will be unlike us.
Steve: We wanna sound like Limp Bizkit on our next record…

Rn: What do you think about being compared to bands like The Atari’s and Blink 182?
Chad: I think it’s fine, I mean we came from the same place, it’s the same kinda style.
Ian: We’re East Coast stuff they’re more West Coast style.
Steve: Being compared to Blink 182, I grew up listening to Blink 182, and they’re one of my favourite bands, so being compared to them’s like an honour.
Chad: I don’t think we really sound like that category, someone that likes New Found Glory will know that we don’t really sound like Blink, if you’re really into punk, know what I mean? But if you were at school and someone goes ‘oh, what’s New Found Glory’, you’d probably go ‘oh, they sound kinda like Blink’
Ian: Cos it’s the easiest way to describe it.

Rn: What do you think of all your British fans?
Cyrus: They’re awesome.
Steve: Yeah, all the shows are insane, some of the shows here have been better than some of the ones in America.

Rn: What music did you all listen to when you were 15?
Chad: I was more into hardcore.
Ian: I was still stuck in my metal days mostly listening to like Megadeath and Slayer and Pantera.
Steve: I listened to like Greenday.

Rn: What celebrity would you most like to have a fight with?
Jordan: Shifty Shellshock from Crazy Town
Steve: He’ll kick your ass, dude!
Jordan: I don’t care.
Chad: I’ll jump in, I don’t care.
Steve: The cross-eyed dude’ll kick your ass.
Jordan: Nah, the guy who looks like he’s forty with the big star on his stomach.
Steve: He’s got like five kids. That’s not really a celebrity though, he’s not a movie star.
Chad: I like that question, I wanna think cos I know there’s people that piss me off.
Jordan: Keanu Reeves.
Steve: I like him.
Chad: I dunno, can’t think
Ian: Westlife
Cyrus: The singer from Godsmack
Chad: Yeah, Godsmack dude, I wanna beat him up.
Ian: Moby……what are they movie stars?
Chad: Yes
Ian: Oh, it’s movie stars
Rn: No it’s anyone, most people say Fred Durst
Chad: Nah, he’s from Florida, we gotta keep together.

Rn: Did you find it hard to be accepted as you didn’t come from California or the East Coast?
Steve: In the beginning, I think that was hard for us to get out of Florida cos it took us seven hours to drive even up to Georgia, so we were kinda at a disadvantage.
Chad: Calafornia has a lot of punk bands, but there’s punk bands on the east coast but it’s a totally different vibe when they’re not on the west coast, it’s really weird. East coast bands like us, and H20.
Steve: I think that the wierdist thing is that we started our career on the east coast playing shows over and over again, touring east coast and west coast is bigger for us now.
Cyrus: I think kids from over there think it’s cool cos we’re a band that’s not from the west coast but we sound kinda west coast but still with our own little touch.

Rn: Which band would you most like to tour with?
Chad: I would say Greenday
Steve: Greenday
Ian: I would say Blink, but we’ve already toured with them so I guess I’ll have to pick someone else
Ian: I’d probably say Greenday.

Rn: Would you consider doing something along the lines of The Decline, by NOFX?
Cyrus: I don’t think I could play a song for that long
Steve: Well we have like a 20 minute long EP of cover songs.
Cyrus: It’s one song for like 20 minutes
Chad: Doesn’t it stop like it must be more than one song?
Ian: No, all the way to the end it goes back to riffs from like the beginning of the song
Cyrus: Yeah it’s really cool. It’s like a symphony.

Rn: Did everyone laugh at you because you released an EP of covers?
Chad: No, actually it helped us a lot
Steve: Yeah, a lot of people heard of us for the first time because of that.
Chad: It was good because when we first started no one knew our songs, when we played locally, so we played the Celine Dion song and everyone knew it and hated it and it was just funny.
Ian: People would always ask what CD it was on and it wasn’t so we figured we would just record it, cos everyone kept asking for it.
Chad: And later it helped us cos there was a sticker on it which said ‘7 punk rock covers of movie songs’ and punk kids would go to record stores and not know who we were but see ‘7 punk rock covers of this’ so they’d buy it and they’d go buy our old CD afterwards.

Rn: What would you say to people who think you’re just N’Sync with guitars and broken hearts?
Jordan: I wish we looked as good as N’Sync
Cyrus: Everyone has the right to their own opinion, they can think what they want, I don’t mind.
Ian: As long as they don’t say we’re Backstreet Boys
Steve: No N’Sync’s ok, just not Backstreet Boys
Ian: Or Westlife, or Boyzone.
Steve: No, I don’t mind, everyone has the right to their own opinion as you said but we’re obviously not a boyband, we’re fat, we’re overweight, we have tattoos and we right our own songs.
Ian: We put the band together ourselves
Steve: The thing about N’Sync compared to us, you can say that N’Sync was put together, they don’t write their own songs, we did everything, we’re like a real band.
Chad: N’Sync and Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears are just entertainment, people don’t listen to relate their lives to it
Ian: It’s just cos the songs are fun.
Steve: If anyone writes anything catchy people always label you as sell outs, other bands are like ‘we don’t want anyone to like our band. Let’s just tour around and play in front of nobody all the time.’

Rn: Oh and since you’re from Florida, how many times have you been to Disney World?
Chad: A lot
Ian: Too many
Steve: Eight
Cyrus: It’s not even good.
Chad: I like it.